Episode 56: When Your Rental Isn't Renting
Summary
My unit has been vacant for a while now - WHY isn't my rental renting? In today's episode we explore three of the main reasons why a vacancy doesn't rent as fast as you might hope. It might be the time of year, or perhaps your marketing, or could even be your price point. We also offer some resources to help figure out fair market value for your unit! The biggest take away for this podcast: don't panic when your rental isn't renting!
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Full Episode Transcription
Welcome to my life as a landlord where we untangle all things housing and educate the curious. If you're
looking for some entertainment with some honest, awkward conversations, you've come to the right
show. I'm your host, Dr. Jennifer Salisbury. This is my life as a landlord. Welcome to it.
Welcome to my life as a landlord. I am Doctor Jen and I'm so excited for you to join me
today, our first podcast in 2024. So as they say in Hawaii, Holy mackerel, which means Happy New
Year! You might have noticed that today is January 2nd. We have shifted our release days for the new
podcast episodes to Tuesday. It's, uh, it seems that everybody is listening more during the week, and so
we thought we would help with all of that listening and shift it to early in the week. So our weekly
podcast is now going to be coming out on Tuesdays, which is cool. The other change is in 2023. Uh, we I
recorded 55 episodes with six guests. And that makes today's episode 56. So I'm jumping ahead. We did.
I did do three podcast extras and on Spotify and Apple Podcasts and some of the other podcast platforms.
It was counting along as we were doing it, and even though my numbering didn't match, it knew that we
did record 55 podcasts. So today's episode number 56, entitled When Your Rental Isn't Renting. Oh my
goodness, landlords out there, please do not panic. I'm recording this in the middle of winter, just about
to be Christmas, and I know this is going to air January 2nd. What do you do when your rental isn't
renting? And typically what new landlords do is they panic, they panic and they go, oh my gosh, I need
somebody in there right now. I can't afford the mortgage, I can't afford this. I don't want it to be empty
for whatever reason. When the rental isn't renting, people can panic. But if you panic, what ends up
happening? Many of you know this. You will likely start rushing your screening of your tenants, and
what ends up happening is you get anyone in there with a pulse and a very good story, and then it
becomes a bit of a nightmare. It can be a nightmare. Sometimes you get lucky and that you're okay. But
going from a panic mode, just saying I need somebody in there to making a big mistake and putting the
wrong tenant in. So what do you do? What happens when your rental isn't renting? What do you actually
do with that. So there's we're going to talk about three things. And I know this isn't all of them. I'm just
going to get hit the high points the three high points. So it could be the timing. It could be your
marketing. It could be your price, okay. It could be one of those things. So let's let's go through this. It
could be the time of year. For those of my more seasoned landlords, you might start to recognize that
there is a bit of a rhythm in the year when you have tenants who are not in an emergency situation,
because if something happens with a family member and they have to give notice or their job transfers or
something completely unforeseen, uncontrollable, that's different, right? That's different. But when you
kind of can see the rhythm of the year, when tenants tend to move around. They tend to move around.
Not during Christmas, but not during the weather, not during winter. If you're in a snowing place and
they tend to be settled by the time school starts. And so in my history I have seen tenants leave October,
November or January February. But not in the middle of Christmas, if they can help it, right? Not in the
middle of winter, if they can help it. And the other time of year that typically I've seen is that tenants will
move in July, August, and then by Labor Day, if especially if they've got children in school, they are
settled and they want to be settled, they don't want to be moving in September or October. And so it
could be the time of year. So right now, the time of year is Christmas, New Year's in the holiday season, I
particularly I have a vacancy right now that isn't renting and I'm not panicking. I've got my marketing
out. I understand what's going on. And we when I got the proper notice from the tenant that departed, I
said, it's probably going to sit empty until February and I just have to budget for that and hope that it
doesn't. But I can't panic. I'm not going to speed up my screening. That's not part of our our show. And so
the first thing it might if your rental isn't renting, it might just be the timing of the year. Have a little
patience. It's tough when you're still paying bills and mortgage and things like that when you don't have
any revenue. But just be patient and get the right tenant in. It could just be the time of year. It could also
be your marketing of the unit, right? Could be the marketing of the unit. So I've seen several. I mean, I'm
on on a lot of the Facebook forums. I'm on LinkedIn forums as well, and I see different questions and
different things. And I also see lots of advertisements for units available all over the place, all over the
North America, quite frankly. And some of them are doing right. And some of them I just go, oh my,
that's not very inviting for a potential tenant of the caliber that you want. And so here's a couple of
different ideas. You want to take a look at your pictures in particular, right. The pictures sell because this
is it's sort of, you know, a few seconds that a potential tenant is just going to take a look now. As an
aside, let's just be honest here in this housing market, sometimes tenants don't have a choice and they're
just going to put their name out for every single thing they possibly can just because they don't have any
other choice. However, that doesn't mean you don't want to market your unit properly. Remember, this
podcast is all about what happens when your rental isn't renting, right? So even if you're in a very high
demand area, why isn't your rental renting? It could be the pictures in your marketing, right? It could be
the pictures of your marketing. So there's several things that you want to do. And so. One of the first
things that you want to do is you want to make sure that your pictures are taken on a sunny day, and that
both inside and outside, the unit is orderly. I'm not saying perfectly clean. That's not what I'm saying.
Orderly. If there is clutter, you try to put your back to the clutter. Take a picture of what's not cluttered.
Okay? There's all the all kinds of little tricks that you can also Google about marketing your unit. And
with pictures, one of the main things you can do is in the bathroom, clear the counter completely and
close the toilet lid. I've seen lots of pictures of bathrooms and potential units that the toilet lid is up and it
just it little things like that can turn potential tenants off. And when your rental isn't renting, you want to
have every bit of possible, uh, reason for a good tenant to contact you as possible, right? So it could be
your marketing, could be your pictures. Um, could be a bit of your wording. There's I'm going to do
another podcast on how to write the marketing ad for your unit. So just keep in mind it could just be your
marketing. Okay. The other aspect and the big aspect that a lot of us are looking at now is it could be
your price. It could be your price. So there's quite a few ways. And this is one of the questions that comes
around on LinkedIn, Facebook, social media. I've even gotten emailed a couple times about how do I
know what price I should put my unit at. Now there's a fair market price that you can use, and in fact, I've
got a great way that you can look up your prices. Or it must be one of my links. That's okay. I'll put the
link on there. So there is a way that for your area, especially if you're in the United States, you can look
up what is fair market in. Um, and it's usually house and urban development for the US. And then um
Canadian Mortgage Housing Corporation CMHC for Canada. So regardless of where you are before this
episode airs, I will have those links up for you. And you simply put in your location in your province,
your state, and and then your city, and then it will say, what is your unit size? And it's usually by
bedrooms. Some of them are by square feet and some of them are also by city. So you want to really look
drill down as much as possible in your fair market value areas. Now is that the end all be all know that's
what the government is recording is fair market value in your local area, whether you're the in the US or
in Canada. But the the challenge there is if the demand is higher or the supply is higher, which will push
the prices lower, that may not be the price that you put it at. So then what some of you are talking about,
you can use rental meters. Com some of you can use uh comps in your area. And, and the way that you
can get comps is if you've got a two bedroom, one bath unit that is vacant or about to be vacant, then
where are the other two bed one bath units that are comparable in age, comparable in size, comparable in
amenities? You know you don't want a brand new place with a pool if you have a duplex, uh, with, you
know, on a on a residential lot. Right. You want to try to compare apples to apples as best as you can in
age and amenities and size. Right. You don't want to. You don't want to be the, you know, 1000 square
foot two bedroom and and a and a 400 square foot two bedroom that may not that may not be the same.
Uh, also, you want to take into account, uh, whether or not pets are accepted pets, not emotional support
animals or service animals. That's not we're talking about. We're talking pets. Um, but you want to take a
look at what comparable units that match your vacancy. As close as you can get it in your area. Comps in
your area are advertised for now. That doesn't mean that's what they're going for, but that will give you a
better clue. So between fair market value report for your local area, whether you're in US and Canada or
comparable units in uh, for what the advertisements are in, you know, other like amenities like size, like
bedrooms, uh, like age, that kind of thing that's easier for you to say, you know what? That's a, that's a, a
newer unit, maybe that's a little more valuable or I'm not including laundry in mine. So maybe it's I
should list it a little less. But those are some ideas that will help you figure out your price. Maybe your
price to high. Maybe you want to wait another couple weeks. Maybe you need to expand your marketing
to include. Uh, maybe you just need to put an ad in the paper. And I've done that lots. Right? Just put a
little classified ad in the paper, drive it to either your phone or your website. Uh, but that goes back to
your marketing. It could be any of those. So when your rental isn't renting, don't panic. Landlords don't
panic because you don't want to get someone in there quickly. That probably should be screened a lot
more stringent than if you're panicking, right? Okay, so it could be either timing marketing of the unit
pictures, maybe it's the ad, maybe it's where the ads are, or it could be your price. So here's your call to
action. Your call to action is take a look. At some of your unit pictures. Take a look at the pictures. If
you've got a vacancy right now that's not renting, I challenge you. Make sure your pictures are desirable.
Go through and look at some of your pictures. Now some of you might be saying, but wait a minute, Jen,
my unit isn't vacant yet. I can't get inside and take interior pictures. Okay, and fair enough. But when you
have that opportunity and the unit is vacant or you have a nice sunny day, take more marketing photos.
You want to make sure that you've got a portfolio of all your units and a basically a marketing script for
all your units that when it comes available, you basically cut and paste it into your ad wherever you're
putting your ads, right. So that's your call to action is take a look at your take a look at your photos and
just regroup on are they the best that they can be I challenge you, there's probably not uh, there's probably
a couple in there that you can change and you can do better. Okay, today's episode was all about when
your rental isn't renting. Don't panic. There's lots of panicking going on right now on social media.
Everybody just needs to be a little patient. Enjoy your Christmas in your new year. It will rent, find the
right renters, screen them properly. You'll do great. Let me know your comments and questions. You can
email me at learn at my life as a landlord.com. And don't forget comments and questions. Create next
podcasts and resources. Speaking of resources, don't forget on my life as a landlord.com you get two free
Blackout bingo cards which are actually kind of fun to help educate yourself. Join me for next week's
podcast, episode 57, where I talk all about how to advertise without discrimination, advertising without
discrimination. I will see you there.
Thank you for joining us this week. To view the complete show notes
and all the links mentioned in today's episode, visit our website at www.mylifeasalandlord.com. If you're
looking for educational resources for getting into real estate investing, becoming a landlord, or even a
better tenant, then I have a page on my website to get you started looking for a solution to the pickle that
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Thank you again for joining me, Dr. Jennifer Salisbury in this episode of My Life as a Landlord. I'll see you next time.